would you help me with future perfect?

[Ahtahkakoop11]

A.Once I make another cake, I will have possessed 3 cakes.
B.Once I make another cake, I will possess 3 cakes.

The building is hardly there to satisfy the needs of structure but, whatever its purpose or plan, structural needs will have had a vital hand in shaping its form.

It's a sort of future retrospective tense, where one is talking about a past tense that has not yet occurred, but is expected to occur. In the case you asked about, it introduces the information that the building does not yet exist, or that some other related event is still yet to take place in the future.


Would you kindly give me more examples about future perfect like such situations and explain them more readily?http://forum.thefreedictionary.com/images/emoticons/eusa_doh.gif or, when do you prefer to use future perfect like this situation which I have provided like examples?

And, what is the difference between A and B?

I have extracted these information from a site.


Many thanks

[studiot]

 

20 minutes ago, Ahtahkakoop11 said:

And, what is the difference between A and B?

OK, the future in English.

 

The perfect tense refers to a completed action (verb)

A completed action is over and done with and often cannot be repeated.

For example I have eaten the apple happened in the past so is past perfect.

But say in the present I hold an apple.

Obviously I have yet to complete eating it, or even perhaps to start eating it.

So in the present I eat the apple or since this takes time,

I am eating the apple which is the imperfect tense.

But say I do not, which in 2 hours into the eat the apple until my lunchbreak, which is 2 hours into the future.

So I say that, "At lunch,  I will eat my apple." Which is the unspecific or simple future.

or I can say,

"At lunch, I will be eating my apple."      Which is the future imperfect.

or I can say,

"After lunch, I will have eaten my apple"  Which is the future perfect.

That is further into the future following the completion of eating of my apple.

I cannot refer to something that will happen in the future whilst I will be eating my apple  - I must use the future imperfect for that.

So

Once I have eaten my apple my lunch will be completed. Perfect

While I am eating my apple my lunch will be interrupted.   Imperfect

 

 

 

 

[Country Boy]

On 8/26/2021 at 3:58 AM, Ahtahkakoop11 said:

A.Once I make another cake, I will have possessed 3 cakes.
B.Once I make another cake, I will possess 3 cakes.

And, what is the difference between A and B?
 

B says that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes and that I willstill have all three.

A say that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes but that I might have disposed of (ate, gave away, threw away) one or more of them,

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, Country Boy said:

B says that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes and that I willstill have all three.

A say that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes but that I might have disposed of (ate, gave away, threw away) one or more of them,

How do you know?

[joigus]

On 8/26/2021 at 10:58 AM, Ahtahkakoop11 said:

A.Once I make another cake, I will have possessed 3 cakes.

This example is so abominable. I can't picture in my mind any English-speaking person in any situation saying it. 

"Once I make another cake, I will (possess, own, have) three cakes."

This is much more natural IMO.

Part of the reason is that verbs indicating ownership are generally stative verbs and don't allow you to do these things (use progressive tenses or other 'complicated' tenses. Example:

I'm owning this car.

I was owning this car.

I will be possessing the house of my dreams.

Let alone,

I will have possessed 3 cakes.

That's bad bad English IMO.

Future perfect is used to project your mind to a time in the future with reference to a previous action or event (already in the future) which is necessary for the second action or event to happen. Example:

Once I finish the exercise book, I will have mastered all that's necessary to become a practicing programmer.

Pay attention to the verb. "own" or "possess" (stative) is not the same as "master" or "learn" (non-stative).

Main uses of 'will':

Prediction or wondering about an uncertain future, or expressing the will of a course of action, or asking someone for favour, help, etc:

"Will you marry me?"

"It won't rain tomorrow"

"What will happen to him?"

"If I study hard I will become a lawyer!"

Also for promises (long term) or spontaneous offerings (now):

"I will help you with your homework"

"I'll answer the phone"

"I will get back to you ASAP"

 

On the contrary, "going to" future is for

1) Situations in which you predict the future in the presence of the evidence or a stong clue:

"If you keep eating like this, you're going to die of a heart attack"

"Stop monkeying around, you're going to break something!"

"Look at those clouds, it's going to rain"

 

I've + participle is present perfect, and it's for a completely different use: Recent past or past that's still relevant for some reason (news to the listener, even if it's happened in a remote past, etc.)

[studiot]

3 hours ago, Country Boy said:

On 8/26/2021 at 9:58 AM, Ahtahkakoop11 said:

A.Once I make another cake, I will have possessed 3 cakes.
B.Once I make another cake, I will possess 3 cakes.

And, what is the difference between A and B?
 

B says that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes and that I willstill have all three.

A say that, at some time in the future, I will have made 3 cakes but that I might have disposed of (ate, gave away, threw away) one or more of them,

Nothing wrong with either the original A / B statements or Country Boy's explanation.

My apologies for the crap English turned out by the input editor here on my last post.

Possibly the easiest way to understand the cakes, which we do not normally talk about possessing, is to pick up on Joigus' car example.

 

A)  Once I sell another car I will have possessed 3 cars.

That is I have already possessed and sold 2 cars and I currently posses a third. Once I sell it I will no longer posses it so I will then have possessed 3 cars.

B) Once I sell another car I will possess 3 cars.

That is I currently possess 4 cars. So once I sell another car I will then posses one less or 3 cars.

[joigus]

"I will have possessed 3 cakes" is not natural English. It's not idiomatic. It's just an artificially-made, laboratory-of-language-like, awkward, pull-out-of-your-academic-ass, unnecesarilly-contorted expression. Very much in the way of:

I will have meant

I will have believed

I will be possessing

But, hey, that's just my two-cents opinion as a Cambridge-certified, professional teacher of English that I am.

Reason? Because all those verbs are stative verbs.

Language is not combinatorics.

[studiot]

40 minutes ago, joigus said:

"I will have possessed 3 cakes" is not natural English. It's not idiomatic. It's just an artificially-made, laboratory-of-language-like, awkward, pull-out-of-your-academic-ass, unnecesarilly-contorted expression. Very much in the way of:

I will have meant

I will have believed

I will be possessing

But, hey, that's just my two-cents opinion as a Cambridge-certified, professional teacher of English that I am.

Reason? Because all those verbs are stative verbs.

Language is not combinatorics.

 

Quote

Wikipedia

According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is one that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action.

According to some linguistics theories.

But hey, not all of them.

 

I agree that "I will have possessed 3 cakes."  is unusual English as we don't usually talk about possessing cakes.

However I suggest my examples of possessing cars is the only English construction to get those particular meanings across and that we often talk about the cars we have possessed or will possess or will have possessed in common parlance.
 

I also agree that your English is pretty good.

 

Edit

I should add that I must disagree with some of the English examples Wiki gives of 'stative' verbs.
My German is not good enough to comment on the German examples, although I wonder if the whole idea comes from German where noun gender and case play a differ part, from that in English and the idea makes perhaps more sense.

Edited October 17, 2021 by studiot
spelling

[joigus]

2 minutes ago, studiot said:

However I suggest my examples of possessing cars is the only English construction to get those particular meanings across and that we often talk about the cars we have possessed or will possess or will have possessed in common parlance.
 

Your examples and your explanations are pretty good too, Studiot. And you're always willing to help, which is priceless. But the truth is some academic material out there focuses on producing contorted expressions that only contribute to complicate things much more than need be. Language is not mathematics, and I see students suffer every day on account of some expressions being too artificial; and other times too formal. Language should be learnt by impregnation, not by "problem-solving" techniques. 

I'm very much willing to hear native-English speakers tell me if "I will have possessed whatever" is an expression they would use in any conceivable context, because, if it is, I will gladly include it in my toolkit. Please, fill me in on this one, cause I'm always willing to learn.

On 8/26/2021 at 11:40 AM, studiot said:

For example I have eaten the apple happened in the past so is past perfect.

 

This is not past perfect; it is present perfect: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/grammar/online-grammar/present-perfect-simple-and-present-perfect-continuous

Past perfect is I had eaten the apple. It's used to express a past event or situation with reference to an event or situation that happened further back in the past.

[StringJunky]

Joigus   In twenty five years, I will have possessed 14 cars. If you notice, it is from the perspective of the future and looking back.

Edited October 17, 2021 by StringJunky

[studiot]

17 hours ago, joigus said:

This is not past perfect; it is present perfect: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/grammar/online-grammar/present-perfect-simple-and-present-perfect-continuous

Past perfect is I had eaten the apple. It's used to express a past event or situation with reference to an event or situation that happened further back in the past.

Thank you, yes there are a lot of past tenses, perhaps I mixed some up.

 

Remembering that the original source was a teaching programme for English as a foreign language,

I would observe that people are more likely to talk about owning than possessing, which actually has a slightly specialised meaning.

But of course these days the most likely verb is "I had a ....... something or another", which is pretty general.

But as to any of these being a 'stative verb' personally I think that is ridiculous, judging by the Wiki definition of stative as fixed for all time

Quote

The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are static or unchanging throughout their entire duration, whereas dynamic verbs describe processes that entail change over time.

In English and many other languages, stative and dynamic verbs differ in whether or not they can use the progressive aspect. Dynamic verbs such as "go" can be used in the progressive (I am going to school) whereas stative verbs such as "know" cannot (*I am knowing the answer).

In English, a verb that expresses a state can also express the entrance into a state. This is called inchoative aspect. The simple past is sometimes inchoative. For example, the present-tense verb in the sentence "He understands his friend" is stative, while the past-tense verb in the sentence "Suddenly he understood what she said" is inchoative, because it means "He understood henceforth". On the other hand, the past-tense verb in "At one time, he understood her" is stative.

 

This analysis is flawed as can easily bee seen by realising that both the verbs to know and to understand can be reversed, eg in mental deterioration conditions.

[joigus]

17 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you, yes there are a lot of past tenses, perhaps I mixed some up.

 

Remembering that the original source was a teaching programme for English as a foreign language,

I would observe that people are more likely to talk about owning than possessing, which actually has a slightly specialised meaning.

But of course these days the most likely verb is "I had a ....... something or another", which is pretty general.

But as to any of these being a 'stative verb' personally I think that is ridiculous, judging by the Wiki definition of stative as fixed for all time

 

This analysis is flawed as can easily bee seen by realising that both the verbs to know and to understand can be reversed, eg in mental deterioration conditions.

English verbs... Who needs them. The answer is everyone!

I like to think about English verbs in different degrees of "malleability". They go all the way from modal verbs --which I like to think of as verbal particles, rather than "real" verbs--, going through stative verbs --reflecting status, rather than "fixed for all time", at least in my understanding--, down to ordinary action verbs.

But the most important difficulty with this categorisation --with any categorisation perhaps-- is that these qualities change with time and with how people --with special focus on native speakers-- actually use these things.

Language changes, and if people somehow agree that it's OK to say "I'm loving it" --never mind McDonald's"--, then it's OK to say "I'm loving it."

[dimreepr]

On 10/18/2021 at 12:45 AM, StringJunky said:

Joigus   In twenty five years, I will have possessed 14 cars. If you notice, it is from the perspective of the future and looking back.

Hindsight, the only exact science... 

[Endy0816]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

English verbs... Who needs them. The answer is everyone!

I like to think about English verbs in different degrees of "malleability". They go all the way from modal verbs --which I like to think of as verbal particles, rather than "real" verbs--, going through stative verbs --reflecting status, rather than "fixed for all time", at least in my understanding--, down to ordinary action verbs.

But the most important difficulty with this categorisation --with any categorisation perhaps-- is that these qualities change with time and with how people --with special focus on native speakers-- actually use these things.

Language changes, and if people somehow agree that it's OK to say "I'm loving it" --never mind McDonald's"--, then it's OK to say "I'm loving it."

Technically Ranald MacDonald did teach English.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Endy0816

[dimreepr]

So often ignored... 😉

 

[joigus]

On 10/18/2021 at 1:45 AM, StringJunky said:

Joigus   In twenty five years, I will have possessed 14 cars. If you notice, it is from the perspective of the future and looking back.

You're right. It makes perfect sense. It's just that I rarely ever hear or read that use of verbs denoting possession. And I'm wondering why that is. I've searched on Google, and I get about 3'900'000 occurrences of "I will have owned," and 393'000 of "I will have possessed." It is perhaps relevant to say that most of them --and the first pages of them-- are from grammar sites, and not real language in use. But let me add that that doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with them. Perhaps it's something people are less likely to say for some reason.

To take an extreme example, "my dog funded the project" is a perfect from the grammatical and syntactical point of view, though it's unlikely that we would ever hear or read that anywhere.

2 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Technically Ranald MacDonald did teach English.

I can't say I'm familiar with his work...

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

So often ignored... 😉

 

Perhaps for good reasons...

[studiot]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

So often ignored... 😉

 

+1 for your previous post. It made me laugh.

 

10 minutes ago, joigus said:

To take an extreme example, "my dog funded the project" is a perfect from the grammatical and syntactical point of view, though it's unlikely that we would ever hear or read that anywhere.

Yes, unlikely, but since dogs have sometimes been left money in a will, not impossible.

But I do take you point about correctness.

One thing we had drummed (dinned) into us at school was that to be correct English not only did the words have to follow 'the rule' but the collection of words also had to 'make sense' as well as blindly following the rules.

 

15 minutes ago, joigus said:

You're right. It makes perfect sense. It's just that I rarely ever hear or read that use of verbs denoting possession.

As regards possession, ownershhip and possession are not necessarily the same thing.

Again using my car example, many people 'possess' a company car.

But they do not the own of that car.

As as far as I am concerned, stative verbs are an artificial distinction, as are dynamic verbs.

You could, just as easily argue, that something cannot be in a particular 'state' without a dynamic verb signifying its entry into that state.

So there is some complementarity in the concepts.

[swansont]

4 hours ago, joigus said:

I like to think about English verbs in different degrees of "malleability". They go all the way from modal verbs --which I like to think of as verbal particles, rather than "real" verbs--, going through stative verbs --reflecting status, rather than "fixed for all time", at least in my understanding--, down to ordinary action verbs.

 

Don't forget gerunds (verbs used as nouns), and verbs being used as adjectives

[studiot]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Don't forget gerunds (verbs used as nouns), and verbs being used as adjectives

Indeed I was keeping them in reserve.

But now you have outed them.

+1

[joigus]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

As regards possession, ownershhip and possession are not necessarily the same thing.

Thank you. I know.

I possess an almost inexhaustible patience, but I don't own it. I can own a car, or a house though.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Don't forget gerunds (verbs used as nouns), and verbs being used as adjectives

They are always on my mind. I will have owned them all by the end of 2022. But I will have never possessed them.  

I was once trying to explain this to a student who insisted that gerunds are nouns.

[Endy0816]

13 hours ago, joigus said:

'I can't say I'm familiar with his work...

Quote

Ranald MacDonald was the first native English-speaker to teach the English language in Japan, including educating Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters to handle the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa Shogunate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranald_MacDonald

Probably unrelated to the Restaurant but who knows lol

[studiot]

6 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranald_MacDonald

Probably unrelated to the Restaurant but who knows lol

What do you know ?

This morning I said to someone "when I have had breakfast" , as a short form for  "I will do that, when I have had breakfast"

which again is  a colloquial abbreviation for the full future perfect, "when I will have had breakfast".

Edited October 20, 2021 by studiot

[joigus]

6 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranald_MacDonald

Probably unrelated to the Restaurant but who knows lol

LOL. Thanks. Yes, I took a quick look at the Wikipedia page, but I couldn't figure out, was he a terrible teacher?

To @StringJunky: Going over your example I realised it's perfectly OK to use perfect future tense in some cases. What threw me off the tracks in the particular example was the combination of the action (making cakes, rather a short-term action), the time adverb "once", and the use of the perfect future. The overall effect of this accumulation of elements results, to me, in a very unnatural sentence. Again:

"Once I make another cake, I will have possessed three cakes"

I'd rather say:

"Once I make another cake, I will have three cakes"

What I mean is, frequency adverbs, as well as time adverbs, strongly constrict the tenses. E.g.,

"I often visit old monuments"

Is OK. But,

"I'm often visiting old monuments"

is awful, from the point of view of good English grammar.

On 8/26/2021 at 11:40 AM, studiot said:

Once I have eaten my apple my lunch will be completed. Perfect

Perfect? This largely depends on the state of the apple.  

[dimreepr]

How often does the written word, confuse the message?

Is it so surprising Socrates, refused to write? 

[Endy0816]

16 hours ago, joigus said:

LOL. Thanks. Yes, I took a quick look at the Wikipedia page, but I couldn't figure out, was he a terrible teacher?

Quote

Samuel Wells Williams, a member of Perry's second visit noted in 1854:

A new and superior interpreter came with Saborosuke, named Moriyama Yenosuke ... He speaks English well enough to render any other interpreter unnecessary, and this will assist our intercourse greatly. He ... asked if Ronald McDonald (sic) was well, or if we knew him. ... giving us all a good impression of his education and breeding.

I'd say he was pretty good a teacher. Still crazy going to Japan then, but how many can say they taught Samurai?